


The Best of Times

by JoJo



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Gift Fic, Holiday Gift!Fic Extravaganza, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas morning in Four Corners and peace and goodwill's a long time coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best of Times

**Author's Note:**

> this also tenuously fulfills the prompt 'vigil' on my languishing, unfinished 10_hurt_comfort table...

While the day may have dawned clear and mild, it wasn’t exactly peace and goodwill to all men. Buck wasn’t surprised.

Not with a whole bunch of discontented traveling cowpokes far from home in town. Who just couldn’t seem to let the night before Christmas be put to rest. Nearly took the roof off the Saloon. Inez, with a measure of help and a broom, had gotten rid of them for a few hours, but soon they were back. Banging on the Saloon doors, demanding entry. And sounding a little bit meaner this morning.

“ _Si, si, si, Feliz Navidad_!” she yelled at them from upstairs. “We are closed! Time to go to church, _señors_!”

It was the bullet through the window that brought everyone out. Well, everyone on the peacekeeping payroll anyhow, except for Nathan who had further to come and maybe hadn’t heard the shot. Before long, in the usual way of things, punches had been thrown, and Ezra, judgment woefully impaired by a string of late nights, chose the wrong pair of troublemakers to back chat. Comprehensively flattened by some big lug with a fist the size of a dinner plate, he hit his head on the boardwalk steps for good measure. 

Which, given the sharp report of bullets into the air from Chris and Vin, was the final sign for the scuffle to be squashed. And none too gently.

“Git Nathan!” Vin threw over his shoulder at nobody in particular. He was wild-haired and hoarse-voiced from his own late night. And none too impressed with whoever had landed the sucker punch, a fact which didn’t bode well for their comfort and joy on the way to jail. “And whatever ya do, Buck, don’t let him pass out!” 

As he and Chris, cussing a blue streak, escorted the staggering youths away at gunpoint for an unseasonal spell behind bars, Josiah stepped carefully over Ezra’s sprawled legs and set off for the clinic at a fierce lope.

Which left Buck and J.D.

A tidal wave of unwelcome responsibility came crashing down on Buck then, Vin’s forthright words reverberating in his head.

Ah hell, was his immediate, uncharitable thought. Ain’t this just gonna be a Happy Christmas.

“That was some wallop.” J.D., crouching down one side of Ezra, whose eyes were rolling around in his head like marbles, sounded faintly admiring.

“It surely was, kid, but don’t you worry none, all we need to do is keep ‘m awake ‘til Nathan gets here.” 

Confident, Buck took hold of one green-jacketed shoulder and jostled it firmly. Ezra obligingly attempted to focus on whoever it was who was bothering him, and then let out a groan like someone had just stepped on his belly. It looked as if he might be about to pass clean out so Buck figured he’d just better jostle harder. “Hey, now come on. Listen up. You listening? What day is it, Ezra? You remember what the day is?”

Surprisingly, there was an immediate answer. “Tuesday or... Friday.” The voice was clogged with confusion. A pause while Ezra’s hand waved around, vaguely patted the side of Buck’s face. “Saturday?”

JD snorted. He and Buck exchanged a look. It wasn’t clear if Ezra was lucid enough to be a smartass and guess the answer to the question, or if he really believed any of those options. At any rate, his eyes didn’t look quite right. They weren’t either of them doing what they were supposed to be doing, and J.D.’s expression said he didn’t quite know what to make of the uncoordinated pawing at Buck’s mustache either. 

For his part, Buck was hanging on to calm by his fingernails, keeping his voice low but not quite able to help the frustration bleeding through. Just as he did when anyone began to try his patience. “No, not day of the week. What day is it? Heck, and don’t try and get up. I didn’t ask you to do that. The day, hoss. What’s the big day today?”

“Oh I know,” said Ezra, which was a relief. He took his flailing hand away from Buck’s face, jabbed a finger towards him with surprising urgency. “I know that I know I know I know.”

“Great.” Buck put his steepled fingers on Ezra’s chest because he had an idea the fool was about to try and find his feet. “Be still and tell me.”

Ezra sighed, dropped the finger. His eyelids twitched closed out of nowhere and Buck flattened the hand, gripped some shirtfront and tugged on it with some energy. “Nuh uh. Don’t go to sleep.”

“Ezra!” JD bellowed and even Buck winced at the volume.

Ezra’s eyes flew open in panic at the sound. “Hell!” He was breathless. “What? What day is it?”

“It’s December 25th!” J.D. shuffled closer, so close Ezra huffed at him in protest. Nevertheless, he lifted his arm sluggishly, let the kid’s knees press into his side. The arm, boneless, flopped down on top. “Christmas Day!”

There was a distinct lack of acknowledgement of the auspicious date on Ezra’s face. He appeared to be trying to focus on a point somewhere over Buck’s shoulder, with limited success.

“What do we do Christmas Day?” Buck pursued, taking a chance on lifting the bloodied head from the dust and slipping his bandana underneath. It was wet and oozing steadily all the way from the back of his head to his ear. Buck wasn’t really worried about the cut, though. He was worried about the crunching impact to the front of Ezra’s skull from that ham fist, already egg-sized and swelling up around his left eye. And how the hell long Josiah was taking in fetching Nathan.

“I know that,” murmured Ezra’s voice hazily. “I know I know...”

Buck took a patient breath. “Great. So... what did we do last Christmas Day?”

“We didn’t do it.”

A blank look crossed Buck’s face. “What didn’t we do?” 

As far as he remembered himself they’d sat out on the boardwalk in the mist and drunk a toast to something none of them had quite been able to articulate in actual words. It wasn’t much, granted, but it had stuck in his mind.

“I know that. I know it, I know. Gimme a moment.”

“Shee..... “ Buck bit down on his frustration and anxiety. He dropped his voice right down to what he hoped was soothing. “Tell me about Christmas Day.”

“That’s easy. Easy. That’s an easy question. I know that.”

“Well so go on then,” Buck encouraged. “Christmas Day, and like any celebration, you talk us inta buyin’ you drinks all day long because...?”

“Because you’re always in the saloon,” JD supplied.

“Whatever.” Buck frowned at the interruption. “Ezra always talks us into it, that’s the point.”

“I know that,” Ezra said, as if he hoped that would suffice. “Ah know.”

“All right. So stay awake. Stay awake and tell us... the best Christmas you ever had.”

There was a hesitation, and then, “Saturday?” Ezra tried desperately.

“Buck, we don’t know if he even gets what ya talkin’ about. You ain’t makin’ it very clear.” J.D. obviously couldn’t decide if he wanted to assist with keeping Ezra awake or engage in a spiky back-and-forth.

Ezra sighed. An even more glazed look came into his eyes and they began to roll shut.

Buck jerked him awake although every instinct in his body was telling him that Ezra wanted to sleep and it would be kinder to let him just go ahead and do so.

“No!” he barked, painfully aware that he and J.D. were the gatekeepers between Ezra and some dreadful fate that Nathan never actually specified, but about which they were all rightly fearful. “Stay awake now! I need you awake and talking to me. It’s real important. Come on now, just a while longer.” J.D. was tugging on the sleeve of the arm that rested over his knees. He had his really worried frown on now. Buck swallowed, calming himself again. “So, what would’ve been the best Christmas Day... if you know what the heck I’m spouting on about.... the best one you ever had?”

“Firecracker...” The word was not said with much conviction, but it was clear enough. And yeah, it figured.

“Yeah. Great, I can see it. What else, Ez? What else d’ya remember?”

“Flags.” That word was indistinct, made JD purse his lips and knot his brows together crossly.

“Yep, yep. I guess there coulda been.” Buck didn’t sound sure at all. He wasn’t sure if he should be encouraging Ezra to spout nonsense like this. Perhaps he should just be asking him how many fingers he was holding up instead.

“You sure he ain’t talkin’ about July Fourth?” J.D. murmured.

Ezra frowned up at them both but the frown seemed to hurt his head and his other hand lifted off the ground. Buck put his knee on it to keep it where it was.

“Staff,” Ezra got out then and Buck could feel a feeble attempt to pull his hand free.

Buck looked to J.D. for help on that one but J.D. shook his head. 

“Well I don’t know about that, but you just tell us more, Ezra. Keep tellin’ us aaaall about it.” Buck strained to look back over his shoulder, to see if Nathan was coming yet. He wasn’t.

“Buck!” J.D. shouted in his ear.

Buck twisted his head back so hard he got whiplash, only to find Ezra’s eyes had slid shut. J.D. was pummeling first on his shoulder and then on Ezra’s.

“Oh hell. No, now come on.” Buck was sharp. “That ain’t the way. Wake up there, hoss. You ain’t doin’ this on Christmas Day.” 

For a few agonizing seconds he gazed at the insensible features, misshapen by the blow and sickly white against the dried mud of the street. All the while his hand, almost of its own accord, tapped at the unmarked cheek. Not too robustly, but hard enough to hear the slapping sound.

“I don’t think he can hear you anymore.” J.D. was glum, had let go the shoulder he’d been jouncing. “Hey, but look... I think that’s... it’s gonna be fine...”

“All right, Buck.” 

That was first thing that permeated Buck’s consciousness. The first thing that caused him, suddenly, to blink back to reality. It was the calm but commanding voice of Nathan Jackson, who was now kneeling across from him where J.D. had been a second before, dressed all smart as if he was off to church, vest and necktie and everything. “Buck, you can stop doin’ that now. Buck!”

“Holy Hell!” Buck said, suddenly realizing he was rattling Ezra about like a rag-doll. Nathan was looking at him accusingly, although it might have been for the language as much as the energetic treatment. “We were jus’ tryin’ to keep him awake for you.” Buck knew he was gabbling but he couldn’t stop. “You know, you told us all about it that time Vin fell on his head. Stayed up all night keeping him awake, me and Chris, so’s he didn’t drift off so far he’d never come back. Thought it was best to do the same thing here, and Ezra had his eyes open... just a second ago.” 

“What all hit him?”

“Oh he took a buncha knuckles to the face, and then he kind of smacked his head on the step.” 

“How come nobody else got hit?” Nathan was feeling around at the back of Ezra’s head and sounded irritated, but Buck knew it wasn’t really that. 

“Oh you know... so busy yappin’, forgot to look out for himself.”

“Huh.” Nathan examined the bandana, then rolled it up again with one hand, set it back under Ezra’s head before gently releasing him to the ground. His fingers, careful, full of experience, pressed around the swelling over Ezra’s eye. Then he passed his whole hand down the side of Ezra’s face, stroked his fingertips firmly against one cheekbone. He leaned in close, spoke soft but clear. “Open your eyes, Ezra. Open ‘em up right now.”

Sure enough there was an obedient twitch of lashes, and then an expressive, deep-belly objection.

“That’s right.” Nathan sounded satisfied with that. “Now you stay right where you are. You can look at me if you like. Keep makin’ them noises. Say something too if you’ve a mind.” His tone was altogether conversational, indulgent rather than bossy.

“He was talkin’,” J.D. said, anxious to help. “Not so long ago. Lookin’ right at us and... talkin’.”

“We asked him stuff.” Buck was full of doubt. “Questions and shit. Like we did that time for Vin.”

“He understand you? Speak any sense?”

“Weeeellll...” J.D. heaved his shoulders in a discontented sigh. “He was kinda talkin’ gibberish.”

“Huh,” Nathan said again. “What about his eyes?”

“Facing in opposite directions far as I could see,” Buck admitted. 

“Ain’t one little bit surprisin’.” Nathan was commonsensical, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried. “We’d better get him off the street. What you makin’ that face for, Buck? Is there somethin’ else?” 

“Nope, just wonderin.... you know, if we did... if we did the right thing shakin’ him about like we was doin’.. we were... well I was kinda rough, just tryin’ to... you know, do what you said.”

Nathan raised a brow at him. “Looks to me like you did a good job on it, although maybe we should go easy on the rattlin’ from hereon in. He’s just about with us and I guess that’ll have to do for now.” He gestured at Buck with one elbow. “May be needin’ your help with one or two other things, Buck. You... weren’t plannin’ on goin’ to Josiah’s service were you?”

“That’s funny,” Buck said, a mite bad-tempered. All he’d been planning to do today was drink a gutful of beer and then ride out to eat a big dinner at Miss Nettie’s along with J.D. and Vin. Now Nathan was appealing to both his loyalty and his God-fearing. Josiah had silently moved in to help with transportation but he didn’t say anything. Just showed his teeth.

“Take it easy now,” Nathan instructed the three of them. “Got a man bleedin’ here. Don’t need you throwin’ him about like a sack of feed.”

“Gawd he’s heavy,” was about all Buck could say when they got him off the ground.

It was a couple of swift stitches in the back of the head in the end. And a cold compress over both eyes. 

Josiah left to change his shirt and see if anyone had turned up at the church, leaving Buck and J.D. to dispose of the basins of bloody water and piles of sodden, soiled cloth.

“I’m all right for now,” Nathan told them when they stumped back up the stairs for the fourth time. “You get along and fetch Vin, git yaselves out to the Wells for your good dinner.”

“Don’t feel right,” Buck said, liking the sound of it even so. “Leavin’.”

Nathan was sanguine. “You got an invite and it’s a special one, you can’t disappoint ‘em. Ezra here ain’t goin’ nowhere and guess I can stand holding him over a bucket for an hour or two when that comes around.” He grinned suddenly. “Chris’ll help out, and Josiah when he done finished his Christmas visits. We’ll find our own dinner, don’t you go worryin’ ‘bout us.”

“Well all right then.” Buck fingered his hat, frowning because he wasn’t sure he should smile. “Guess we’ll be seein’ you later.” He still felt guilty for up and leaving Nathan to it, but his imagination was already breathing in the rich scents of roasting meat and spice and fruit in syrup. And the idea of Chris and Josiah’s Christmas Day chore kind of amused the heck out of him. 

He tipped his hat, followed J.D. out the door and down the steps.

“Sure does look sorry for himself,” the kid murmured. “Ezra I mean. Darn shame to be crocked on Christmas Day.”

“He’ll be fine,” Buck said because even J.D.’s hat looked uneasy. He patted him on the back, reassuring. “Believe me, kid, it’ll all be fine.”

And it had to be, didn’t it? Today of all days. 

*

Buck rolled himself back into town after the dinner, having left Vin fast asleep by the Wells’ fireside, booted feet stretched out along the hearth for all the world like he belonged there, and J.D. helping Casey with the clear-up and pretending to be sensible. He’d bowed out on the pretext of needing to check up on things in town. Which was true, in more ways than Nettie Wells probably knew.

For one thing he was pretty sure Chris would be cuddled up with a bottle of whiskey somewhere by now if he hadn’t had to knock any more heads together for any reason. Probably in the jailhouse. The thought made Buck sigh. He looked in the window in passing, just to check, and was relieved to see that Josiah was cuddled up to the whiskey right along with Chris... only it wasn’t a bottle of whiskey, it was a pot of coffee. The two of them had their chairs hunkered in near the stove and were talking in low voices. 

Up at Nathan’s, Ezra was feverish and fuddled. He was still being woken up and made to talk every hour and wasn’t best pleased by it.

“Ain’t convinced he’s straight in the head yet,” Nathan explained cheerfully. He was sitting vigil by the damned lumpy bed with a plate of half-eaten chicken legs on the night stand beside him and a book that smelled new in his lap. The room held a faint aroma of sickness, carbolic soap and gravy that made Buck wrinkle his nose. “You up to spelling me for a while?”

“’Course I am. Reckon it must be my turn.”

“Wake him in half an hour then and just make him say somethin’.” Nathan looked wry. “Believe me, it ain’t half as easy as usual. If he’s really talkin’ crazy or don’t seem able to stay with you, come get me right away.” 

Buck sat down when Nathan had gone. Put his feet up on the end of the bed and found himself yawning. His belly was full and comfortable, his eyes heavy. He wasn’t entirely sure how long it was before he jerked himself upright and decided he should see what was what.

“Don’t like to do it,” he said, “but it’s time.”

A poke to the shoulder had Ezra forcing open his one good eye and growling. Which seemed promising.

“Nope, you can’t just cuss at me, you gotta say somethin’ sensible. You know how it goes. Remember what day it is?”

“Yes,” Ezra said in the hoarse, drunken voice of a man who’d thrown up too many times in too short a space of time and in front of too many people. “Flagstaff. Best ever.”

“Right.” Buck squinted at him. “Still talkin’ eyewash.”

“Flagstaff,” Ezra repeated, dogged. “Chris’mas.”

“If you say so, hoss. You were there with your Ma?”

A croak of derision greeted that. 

“So... what then? What you remember about that Christmas Day?”

“Out of jail,” Ezra rasped out carefully, as if the words might spark an unwelcome reaction from his gut. 

Buck scratched his chin. If that was true it sounded kind of grim. Still, he’d stacked up one or two lonely Christmases himself. Reckoned Vin and Josiah probably had as well. J.D. had prattled some about being with his mother most years, and Nathan seemed to have plenty of family and friends in his memory, too. Buck reckoned Christmas Day might just have been the best of the year for him back on the plantation. As for Chris, well... for Chris the whole business was just a running sore. 

“That was your best ever?”

Ezra waved the question away. “You?”

That surprised him. Ezra wasn’t one to chat about other people’s pasts, even when his bell hadn’t been rung. Buck settled in the chair, crossed his hands over his belly. “Well...”

He actually thought about not saying, or spinning some tale to satisfy a man who didn’t know which way was up, but somehow that seemed cheap. In any case, the memory Ezra’s question had conjured was suddenly crystal clear, whole and bright in his mind, close enough to touch. “I guess the best ever,” he said at last, a heavy feeling under his ribs, “woulda been the first Christmas after... when they had...” 

“Ah,” Ezra said, as if he absolutely knew, although of course he didn’t.

Buck looked hard into the fire that Nathan had got going in the grate. The flames jumped and flickered before his eyes.

There’d been a bunch of people that Christmas Day, not just the Larabees. Buck had sat right there in the middle of the little house next to a fire just like this, dandling that sweet baby on his knee. And Chris and Sarah had been billing and cooing like lovebirds side by side at the range. Buck didn’t remember what they’d eaten, what they’d talked about, what they’d sung. It had been warm and welcome was all, everyone being who they were and nothing else. Buck remembered that it couldn’t last long enough. The kind of Christmas his mama would have tried for, only things just never seemed to work out that way for her.

“Flagstaff?” he said absently.

Ezra made a quiet sound of agreement, although his eye was mostly closed again.

“You know what?” Buck felt a strange warmth creep up out of the heaviness. “You don’t half talk a pile of horse manure, even when ya brains ain’t scrambled. I’ll bet I know just what was your best Christmas anyhow, never mind all that gettin’ out of jail shit. It was last year, right here in town. Sitting out on the boardwalk in the quiet with the rest of the boys. That was it, wasn’t it? Yeah, I’ll bet it was.”

He looked a little closer. Ezra seemed to be sleeping. Uneasy for sure, what with his swollen face and an outsize in headaches. But sleeping after a fashion.

Buck dug in his vest pocket for his fob watch.

Hopefully Nathan would be gone for a while yet, getting rest or chowing down with some hospitable folks. Chris and Josiah were happy enough where they were, it seemed. They’d always find something to say to each other. Maybe even something helpful. Buck was right glad the two of them had ended up either side of a stove, prisoners or no prisoners. Vin was all right, too. He’d likely snooze under Nettie’s watchful eye for an hour or two, until some inner alarm woke him. Then he’d ride his horse far away and do whatever it was he liked to do out there, looking at the skies or breathing in the air. J.D. would probably stick around at Nettie’s for as long as he could get away with. If he had any sense, anyway. And then, somewhere in town, Buck was pretty sure, somewhere in town there would be a lady waiting for him.

He cocked a brow at the bed. Poor old Ez, he’d just sleep and get woken up, sleep and get woken up. Until tomorrow morning probably. When the poor bastard would feel like a six-horse team had run right over him and it wouldn’t be Christmas anymore anyhow.

But perhaps later that day, or the day after, or even the day after that... when Vin and J.D. were back and the prisoners were out... when Josiah and Nathan weren’t busy and Ezra was up on his feet...

Buck fought to keep his eyes open. 

Yes, tomorrow. Whenever it was. He’d get them all together again, like last year. In the jailhouse, in the Saloon or out on the boardwalk if the wind wasn’t high. Anywhere really, and any day, it didn’t matter. However long or short it was, they’d take that moment.

He glanced at the occupant of the bed once more.

Ezra looked truly terrible, like they all had at one time or another in the last year and a half, but at least he was here and not in jail in Flagstaff.

Buck yawned. A wide, burning, jaw-cracking yawn that took him by surprise. 

He felt all the peace and goodwill in the world descend on him.

And slept.

-ends-


End file.
